Gu Changyuan's hands were slender and long, with delicate, fair skin and long, well-proportioned fingers. Even his fingernails carried an air of refinement.
Compared to his beautiful hands, Xie Licheng's rough hands were far coarser.
Xie Licheng's hands were large, broad, and thick, his palms covered in calluses from years of labor.
His hands were also dry and rough. If not for their pleasing shape, they could truly be considered ugly hands.
Fortunately, his frame was large, his finger bones long, and he had recently put on some weight, giving his hands a sense of masculine strength.
Gu Changyuan's hand was suddenly grabbed. Although he knew this horse groom was trying to protect him, seeing his hand completely enveloped by the other's, he couldn't help but be startled by the man's audacity.
How… presumptuous!
Before Gu Changyuan could grow angry, Xuancui was the first to react.
Xuancui: "How dare you! Release the young master's hand at once!"
Upon hearing this, Xie Licheng let go while explaining with an innocent look, "This one didn't mean to, I was only…"
In truth, he should have let go right after shielding him.
But the feel of his palm was too pleasant, and he had been briefly dazed, which was why he had held on a moment longer than necessary.
Xuancui: "Even if it was to protect the young master, you had no right to grab his hand. The young master is a noble and precious young master—how could he allow a lowly horse groom like you to touch him?"
Seeing Xie Licheng lower his head, looking rather pitiful,
Gu Changyuan said to Xuancui, "Enough, it was just an accident just now. You can't blame him."
It was mainly his own carelessness; otherwise, that situation wouldn't have happened.
Gu Changyuan asked Xie Licheng to release the two wolf cubs. He planned to choose one from them to gift to that young master.
The wolf cubs were still small, and Gu Changyuan had mentally prepared himself, so he wasn't worried about actually being bitten.
Xie Licheng let the wolf cubs out and watched as Gu Changyuan selected one. Looking at the remaining cub, he asked, "And this one? Should we keep it, or should I release it?"
Gu Changyuan glanced at him. "Keep it. It's still this small—if released, it might not survive."
Xie Licheng nodded and prepared to pick up the wolf cub on the ground and leave.
His task was complete. He still had many things to attend to, so there was no need to stay longer.
Gu Changyuan watched him and suddenly seemed to remember something, saying, "By the way, you'll live in this courtyard from now on. From now on, you'll be responsible for taking care of my horse and this wolf cub."
Upon hearing this, Xie Licheng looked around the small courtyard, then said to Gu Changyuan with a delighted expression, "Thank you, young master. This one will take good care of the young master's horse and this wolf cub."
This courtyard was nice. Though it didn't look very large, he would be the only one here.
The courtyard had two rooms, a small stable, a well, and a small patch of vegetable garden.
If not for the troubled times, living here permanently wouldn't be bad at all.
It was just a pity—the chaos of the world was slowly beginning, and a peaceful life might be hard to come by.
After Gu Changyuan left with Xuancui and the others, Xie Licheng made a thorough inspection of the small courtyard.
Having confirmed there were no dog holes or anything of the sort, he went to the stable and led out Gu Changyuan's horse.
Gu Changyuan kept a white horse. He rarely rode it, but he still maintained a horse of his own.
When Xie Licheng went to fetch the horse as ordered, quite a few servants saw him.
Seeing him lead away the eldest young master's horse, and that the eldest young master had given him a courtyard of his own, the expressions on the servants' faces were quite colorful.
Especially those who had bullied the original owner before—seeing this scene, they couldn't help but grow anxious.
The servants who had previously shared a room with the original owner were especially panicked. Among them, the square-faced one said in disbelief, "He… he's climbed up the eldest young master's branch? He's not even… that good-looking. How did the eldest young master take a liking to him?"
Another servant whispered, "I heard that the last time the eldest young master punished Young Master Yue of the second branch, it was because Young Master Yue bullied him at the temple."
Square-face: "How is that possible? What's so good about him? Besides being somewhat decent-looking and smooth-tongued, I really can't understand what the eldest young master sees in him."
A short male servant lowered his voice and said quietly, "I feel like the eldest young master is just getting older, hasn't married, and is lonely. Coincidentally, that horse groom is thick-skinned, knows how to curry favor, and knows how to please people—that's why the eldest young master took a liking to him. How about… we also show our faces in front of the eldest young master in the future?"
Square-face looked at him speechlessly. He despised that horse groom, but he wasn't a fool.
In terms of looks, they truly couldn't compare.
If they rashly approached the eldest young master, even if he was magnanimous enough not to be angry, Steward Xu would skin them alive.
Square-face cursed, "If you want to show off, go ahead yourself. I wouldn't dare provoke the eldest young master."
He was self-aware enough to know that his looks were below average even among men. If he were to recklessly approach the young master, the only thing waiting for him would be a miserable end.
The short-statured male slave secretly cursed him as a coward when he heard this.
He genuinely believed that a young master like the eldest young master, who had never married, must be very lonely.
Moreover, the Gu family was no ordinary household. The old master was quite lenient with the young masters and young ladies, and privately allowed them to summon male slaves for entertainment.
As long as they, the male slaves, were bold enough, skilled at serving their masters, and knew how to speak sweet words, it was still quite easy to climb up the ranks.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Xie Licheng returned to his small courtyard.
He used a comb to groom Gu Changyuan's horse, then properly fed the horse fodder and water.
After confirming that no one would likely come looking for him, he closed the courtyard gate and returned to the Portable World.
Once back inside, looking at the mountain of things to do, Xie Licheng felt a headache coming on.
When he had gone to the mountains outside the city to find the little wolf, he had hunted quite a lot of prey.
These prey were all piled up in the farmstead, so he used the system's recycling function to decompose all of them.
One wild boar, two snakes, one rabbit, and two wolves.
After decomposition, he obtained one wild boar hide, two wolf hides, and one rabbit hide.
Two portions of snake oil, two snake gallbladders, and two portions of snake meat.
One portion of wild boar meat and one portion of wild boar bones.
One portion of rabbit meat, two portions of wolf meat, and two portions of wolf bones.
After organizing all these items, Xie Licheng built a rabbit hutch next to the chicken coop and put the rabbit he had previously caught alive inside.
He had also caught a wild pheasant alive, which he had thrown into the village to roam free. Whether it survived or not would be up to its own fate.
After that, Xie Licheng brought out one rabbit hide, one portion of rabbit meat, and two portions of snake meat.
His current small courtyard had a small kitchen, so he wanted to use the kitchen here to add a little extra to his meals.
But he had barely been out for a short while when Xuancui came over again with her people.
Seeing this, Xie Licheng was extremely grateful that he hadn't stayed longer in the Portable World.
Xuancui's trip this time was to deliver rewards to Xie Licheng.
Xie Licheng had completed this task quite well. Besides granting him a separate small courtyard to live in, Gu Changyuan had also bought him two sets of clothes and rewarded him with fifty taels of silver.
After receiving the clothes and silver, Xie Licheng asked Xuancui to wait outside for a moment, then brought out two items from his room.
When Xuancui saw the blood-stained rabbit meat and rabbit fur in his hands, she couldn't help but shoot him a disdainful glance.
Xie Licheng: "These are for the young master."
Xuancui: "The young master lacks neither food nor fine fur."
Xie Licheng: "I know, but this rabbit was freshly slaughtered, and the rabbit fur is also completely intact with not a single blemish. I thought since the young master has always taken special care of me, I wanted to offer these things to him."
Xuancui wanted to say the young master didn't need them, but recalling the young master's somewhat strange attitude toward Xie Licheng, she thought it over and reluctantly accepted the items with a frown.
Whether the young master needed them or not, it wasn't her place to refuse on his behalf. She might as well bring them back for him to see.
Afterwards, Xuancui went to see Gu Changyuan with the fresh rabbit meat and an equally fresh rabbit fur.
To be honest, when he suddenly saw it, Gu Changyuan was a bit startled.
Yanqiao, who was standing nearby, said with a hint of amusement, "When men give gifts to young masters, they always do it with the utmost delicacy. Even if it's a rabbit, it should be a live one. But he went and sent a dead rabbit over—a skinned dead rabbit at that."
Gu Changyuan smiled upon hearing this. "Then send the meat to the small kitchen to be stewed."
Xuancui asked with a smile, "And what about the rabbit fur?"
Gu Changyuan glanced at it. "The fur color is indeed quite nice. Take it to the embroideress and see what she can make with it."
The weather was getting warmer these days, so such things wouldn't be needed for a while.
For the next two days, it rained continuously outside, and the rain was quite heavy.
Gu Changyuan couldn't go out and felt extremely bored cooped up at home. Then he remembered the little wolf that the horse slave was raising, so he had someone bring both the horse slave and the little wolf to his courtyard.
When Xie Licheng carried the little wolf cub to the back courtyard, not only did many of the Gu household servants see him along the way, but even Gu Tinghe, who had been very well-behaved lately, caught sight of him.
Gu Tinghe watched the direction he was heading and asked the servant beside him, "Is he going to that bastard's courtyard?"
The servant beside Gu Tinghe answered cautiously, "It should be so. This servant saw that Yanqiao was personally escorting him, so he must be heading to the eldest young master's courtyard."
Gu Tinghe suddenly said angrily, "Let's go over and take a look too. What right does a lowly slave like him have to go to the back courtyard?"
That servant quickly tried to dissuade him in panic, "No, no, young master. Have you forgotten? The eldest young master just lost his temper not long ago. We'd better not go near him."
"What's there to be afraid of? He himself can openly seek pleasure with a slave in broad daylight. I just happened to pass by and went in to see what was going on. Could he possibly kill me over something like this?"
No matter what, he was still of the Gu family's bloodline.
No matter how noble Gu Changyuan was, he couldn't just kill him.
With this thought in mind, Gu Tinghe ignored the servants' attempts to dissuade him, picked up his whip, and hurried after him.